Cutting blades are used extensively in paper cutting machines used in the printing industry. The cutting blades used in paper cutting machines and other machines used in production printing facilities require frequent re-sharpening to maintain a cutting edge on the blade which is able to produce high quality cuts. The cutting blades used in these machines are both expensive and heavy, creating difficulty if the blades need to be shipped periodically for sharpening service.
Although cutting blades of this type are not extremely fragile, the blades must be handled carefully during shipping to avoid damaging the blades. Such damage could include bending the blade or breaking off a portion of the edge of the hardened steel or stainless steel blade. Damage to a blade can result in a long machine down time while a new blade is found. A delay such as this adds a considerable expense to the replacement of an already expensive blade.
The excessive weight adds to the difficulty of shipping cutting blades for sharpening service. Because of the weight of these blades, there is an obvious difficulty in their handling. The difficulty is even greater when taking into account the sharp edge that exists on the cutting blade. The weight of the blade will easily force the blade through anything that accidently comes in contact with the blade should the blade be dropped or mishandled. The risk of injury to workers involved in the handling and shipping of these cutting blades is obvious.
Despite the difficulties associated with handling and shipping cutting blades for sharpening service there are currently no cases commercially available that assist in these frequent procedures. Currently most cutting blades are shipped in wooden crates or boxes that offer only a small amount of protection to the cutting blade during transport and often require the use of threaded holes in the cutting blades that are required for reassembly of the blade into the machine in which it operates. Using the threaded holes during transport can damage these threads which are quite difficult to repair in hardened steel or stainless steel blades. Furthermore, the wooden crates are brittle and may easily break under the weight of a heavy cutting blade if dropped. Should a sharp, heavy cutting blade break through the wooden crate the blade could be irreparably damaged and severe injuries could also result. The cutting blades are also difficult to load into wooden crates which often open only on a single end of the crate. The difficulty in loading a heavy, sharp cutting blade into the end of a wooden crate presents many obvious risks to workers engaged in this procedure.
For the foregoing reasons there is a need for a carrying and shipping transport case for cutting blades that allows cutting blades to be shipped with out the potential that the blade could be damaged if the case were dropped or otherwise mishandled. There is a further need that the case would maintain the blade within the interior of the case should the case be dropped or mishandled. There is a further need that the case allow a blade to be secured within the case without using threaded holes on the blade which are critical to the proper reassembly of the cutting blade within printing machines such as paper cutters. There is an additional need for a case that allows the user to easily place and secure a heavy, sharp cutting blade into the interior of the case and to be able to secure the blade within the case without any difficulty, thus limiting the risks involved in this procedure.
There is an additional need for a case that can accommodate the varying bolt hold patterns and blade sizes of various manufacturer's blades.